Puzzle #91 - Solved! REAF-50

[Otto Puzzell]

Know what it is?

Please, respond below and let us know what make and model you think you see here.


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Thanks!

[porridgehead]

1950 REF 600 Convertible prototype, the precursor to modern Pontiac styling.

[MG]

I don't know, but it gives me a "woody."   

[Ultra]

the precursor to modern Pontiac styling.

[Otto Puzzell]

1950 REF 600 Convertible prototype, the precursor to modern Pontiac styling.

No, but you're close.

[Ultra]

1950 REF 600 Convertible prototype, the precursor to modern Pontiac styling.

No, but you're close.

And here I am laughing. 

[porridgehead]

My super-secret source, but sadly incorrect, also said it was Latvian. So the only other Latvian Automobile manufacturers are VEF (State Electrical Plant), that produced a car in the thirties and Rīgas Autobusu Fabrika or RAF.

Since both end in F and my source conglobugated both names, I'm gonna go with RAF 600 convertible prototype, Grand Am edition.

[Otto Puzzell]

My super-secret source, but sadly incorrect, also said it was Latvian. So the only other Latvian Automobile manufacturers are VEF (State Electrical Plant), that produced a car in the thirties and Rīgas Autobusu Fabrika or RAF.

Since both end in F and my source conglobugated both names, I'm gonna go with RAF 600 convertible prototype, Grand Am edition.

REF, your earlier guess, is the name of the facility where these cars were assembled. It is ID'd in some places as the name of the car, but that is not the case. RAF is equally incorrect, for roughly the same reason.

[shamrock]

A Gaz  prototype.

[Otto Puzzell]

Not a Gaz. Porridgehead is tantalizingly close to the correct answer.

[Otto Puzzell]

Very close, indeed.

[porridgehead]

Don't tell me it's the abandoned REAF convertible, the two-cylinder Gaz powered abomination. The sedan is in the Rigas Automuseum in Latvia. If you scrape all that was wrong with Russian automobile manufacturing, congeal it in a rusted pot-metal can, this car is what will leach out the bottom.

Don't tell me that's what it is. Please.

You're going to, aren't you. I just know it. 

[Otto Puzzell]

Ahh - relief at last!

<<< Link Removed >>>

[Arunas]

Shouldn't that be REF 600 as identified in the first reply?

[faksta]

The factory was established as REF in 1947, but was soon renamed into REAF. The car was launched in 1950 as REAF 50, as far as I'm aware...

[Arunas]

The factory was established as REF in 1947, but was soon renamed into REAF. The car was launched in 1950 as REAF 50, as far as I'm aware...

But what does "600" mean then?

[faksta]

If I only knew

[DeAutogids.nl]

600 (cc) engine maybe?
model type 50 maybe?

[sixtee5cuda]

More REAF information:

1950 REAF-50

There is some confusion as to whether this car should be called REAF, RAF or REF. Well, there had been plans to start up car manufacturing in Riga straight after the war, but local politics were the cause of a long delay. However, in the summer of 1949 Stalin ordered that two automobile prototypes be built at the Riga Experimental Factory (REF) - originally established to manufacture radio loudspeakers, metal furniture and other useful articles, and be ready before the anniversary of the October Revolution. The team of designers under leadership of Engineering Captain Vsevolod Bahchivandzhi assembled the prototype using locally built parts, many of them still very experimental, including a hydro-mechanical transmission with automatic clutch. The car featured a modified GAZ-MM engine with two cylinders instead of four. The project was plagued by numerous setbacks, particularly in the transmission department. The only thing to reach Moscow by Stalin's deadline however, was a photograph of the car! The REF officials were not sent off to Siberia as they had feared, but were granted another year to get the prototype car finished. And so in the Autumn of 1950 two REAFs (that presumably stood for Riga Experimental Automobile Factory), a sedan and a convertible, made it all the way to Moscow. The cars underwent thorough testing in Moscow where a commission concluded that although the concept of a cheap, comfortable car was a good one, and praised the modern body design, the prototypes themselves left something to be desired. The expensive automatic transmission worked jerkily and the engine vibrated excessively and it seems the car was lacking shock absorbers altogether. Fuel consumption was about three times that of comparable Moskvich-401. To cap it all, the designers had failed to take car maintenance into account: if the engine needed repairing, the body first had to be removed. Not surprisingly the commission concluded that unless the design was fundamentally improved, the REAF-50 was not fit for manufacturing. And so ended a dream that cost over one million rubles.

The sedan made it back to Riga and is now on display at the motor museum there. The cabriolet broke down en-route and was abandoned.
Finally, RAF stands for the Riga Autobus Factory, where parts of the REAF-50 were manufactured, but apart from that and the similarity of the abbreviation, there is no connection between the two.

By Phil Seed [Based on the book Rigas Auto by Edvins Liepins]

And a picture from the museum.  It looks as if someone decided to steal most of the chrome pieces from the sedan.

[RayTheRat]

Here's another photo of it's drop-dead good-lookin mug: